The castle walls were the strongest thing for miles around, yet when Lupin looked carefully, he noticed the stones. It was built of stones of varying sizes and shapes, each one unique. From a distance, it was a uniform gray, but up close it was more a mosaic of humble rocks, each of them nobody would think anything of given a second glance. But together, they made a castle, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the crown of the landscape and protector of the students. And Hogwarts was threatened.
"Hey, Dean!" bellowed Kingsley's deep baritone voice as he and Lupin prepared to handle this side of the castle. "Tell Professor McGonagall that Remus and I will handle this side of the castle, and… damn," he swore.
His voice faltered and fell silent as he watched the horrifyingly beautiful sight of Voldemort's Death Eaters slowly destroying the protective barriers. "On second thought…tell Professor McGonagall we might need a few more wands this way," he managed, his deep voice incredibly soft.
Remus took a deep breath, exhaling through his nose, willing his nerves to calm down. "It is the quality of one's convictions that determine success, not the number of followers," he began, hoping to breathe some encouragement into both his and Kingsley's spirits. "It'll be okay…"
But even he was having trouble believing his own words. How he'd hated to leave Tonks alone with Teddy at her mother's, but this was where he needed to be. If participating in this fight would ensure his son could live a better life, then right here on the terrace was where he belonged.
Kingsley let out a haggard sigh. "Who said that?" he asked wearily.
A beat. A pause. "Me." Remus would have spoken further, but the sound of footsteps running up the stairwell took his attention elsewhere.
Thinking it was perhaps another member of Hogwarts' staff come to assist him and Kingsley, he turned to the right, and was not prepared at all.
His mind was screaming at his wife to turn right around and go back.
"You—you shouldn't have!" he shouted, but he didn't hesitate to open his arms to her as she ran, practically barreling over in a tight embrace.
"I'm needed here," Tonks whispered into the shell of his ear. "Teddy is perfectly safe. Mum's looking after him. He'll sleep till dawn and snore like his father," she joked weakly, pulling back slightly from her husband's embrace to study his face. The two stared at each in a silent way for a bit.
As if it were a silent argument. Their glances battled each other, until tears arose, and Tonks found herself silently crying. "Teddy, he's…" she choked out, angrily wiping away her tears with a flick of her finger.
Remus knew all too well what his wife was thinking. The look of heartbreak in her eyes was almost too much for him to bear, but if the two of them made it out of this alive and unscathed, he'd spend the rest of his life showing his son just how much his parents loved and adored him.
He felt an urge to do something, to comfort his wife, but also himself.
In a moment, he pressed his lips against hers, felt her body loosen and her arms touch his shoulders before one hand drifted upwards, finding purchase in the back of his hair, pressing in softly. Lupin laughed beneath the salty tears, theirs intermingling until he wasn't sure whose was whose.
"Why did you do it?" Tonks whispered, dipping into her black square canvas messenger bag to quietly pull out the letter he'd written for her to find, apologizing to her and Teddy both for leaving her those months ago.
"I…" Lupin's voice faltered and cracked as tears misted in his eyes.
"No one's ever written me a letter before, sweetheart," Tonks replied warmly, carefully tucking it back into her bag and patting it with gentle fingers. "I cried," she confessed, a light blush speckling along her cheeks.
"I'm not very good at speaking what's on my mind," Remus confessed, wringing his hands together. "I do better with the written word, so it's payback, Dora," he whispered. Then they hovered right there, quite soundless for so long, simply feeling each other's presence and love.
Tonks nodded and fell silent, brushing a lock of vibrant pink hair out of her eyes, her wand hand's fingers curling into a tight fist over her wand.
Remus eyed his wife's figure out of the corner of his eye appreciatively, and immediately cursed himself for letting his mind wander and get distracted. She'd put herself on a strict diet following the birth of their baby, exercised at home, working to get her figure back to the way it was before she'd had Teddy so she could soon be cleared to return to work.
He cringed, hating that her first assignment back was to be here. Remus turned, instinctively reaching for his wife's hand, squeezing it tight.
There was absolute stillness. No air stirred the grass or leaves. The barriers surrounding Hogwarts wouldn't last much longer by the looks of it. No clouds drifted in the sea of black above. No water dripped or flowed. Not a sound could be heard could be heard either close at hand or in the far-off distance. Even Lupin's own breath seemed to die as soon as it left his mouth. It was an eerie sort of tranquility, so instead of being soothed his senses became heightened. The two of them felt like the prey even though no predator could be detected. It was as if the world were encased in a cocoon, a bubble, and there was no way out. Tonks drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs as the barrier was finally breached. "Shit," she swore, her voice barely inaudible, though her husband heard it. There was stillness on both sides. If hatred was visible the air would have been scarlet. Then suddenly, movement, so much force in every jinx that was fired as Death Eaters began to swarm the castle grounds in a fury.
"Stay alert, sweetheart! We'll get out of this, I promise!" shouted Lupin over the roar of the teachers' outrage, firing a well-aimed Knockback Jinx to one of the Death Eaters, Alecto Carrow by the looks of her. He wasn't sure where her brother was, but he didn't want to know. "Look out!"
Tonks's face had drained of color until it was chalk white. Lupin thought she looked too pale, even worse than usual, and he wondered if he were to reach out to touch his wife, if he would only graze the air.
As if she were a ghost. He wondered why she was so afraid. Then—
Bellatrix Lestrange stood in front of her niece, her rotten, blackened teeth bared, a wicked sneer upon her lips. Once, she might have been beautiful, but no longer. Her curly brown hair was wild and disheveled.
The look of hatred in the older woman's eyes for her niece was unmistakable. But then Remus looked to Tonks and wasn't surprised to see that same look mirrored in his wife's eyes, and for a moment, he was afraid. Bellatrix barely lifted her wand and began raining down jinxes onto Tonks as if she meant to smash her nice into the very earth, and the young Auror did the same, hollering a muffled order for Lupin to stay away.
Each didn't just want the other dead, they wanted her smashed, obliterated, nothing left to bury. Only one of them was going to walk away.
Remus, in a moment of passionate anger at his wife being threatened like this, raised his wand at the back of Bellatrix's skull, but she deflected it. The Death Eater turned towards Lupin and sneered in utter disgust.
"Your kind, dog," she spat venomously, "has tainted our family tree."
Lupin said nothing, knowing full well anything he said would just provoke her. A quick glance over to Tonks was more than enough.
This was too much for her and she should not be here. She should not have come, only three months after giving birth to their son. There was blood on her knuckles and a bruise above her left eye, yet Tonks couldn't recall the fight itself. Bellatrix Lestrange turned back and hollered something a bout there being hell to pay, but Tonks would get what she wanted. Teddy and the rest of Hogwarts would be safe. This was the end.
The victory would be hers, no matter what happened. So, if Lestrange wanted another round, Tonks would wait in the shadows, wand hand lowered but always at the ready. Tonks let out a primal scream of rage as Bellatrix raised her wand, preparing to kill her husband, and she didn't know who fired the first jinx, but suddenly she had launched herself forward, her fist slamming into her face while she sunk into her stomach.
Blood pooled into Bellatrix's mouth as she gagged. They stumbled apart for a brief second to catch their breaths before diving back at each other, eyes narrowed in determination, fully prepared to kill each other.
"If I'm going to die here, then I'm taking you with me," Tonks growled, turning her head sharply off to the side and spitting out blood.
Tonks dodged her aunt's fist and a well-aimed Cruciatus Curse, her dark eyes widening before she managed to tilt her head back and slam it into her niece's. "TONKS!" bellowed Remus, but she couldn't respond.
Stars and black spots danced in front of her vision, but she stumbled backwards and shook it off, her blood humming in her veins as determination and anger coursed through her veins, changing her spirit.
"I'm all right," she called out, barely heard over Bellatrix's laughter.
Tonks turned toward Remus to say something, but in that split moment of hesitation, Bellatrix Lestrange seized her chance and took it.
Raising her wand, she pointed it steadily, the tip digging into her niece's chest. "Avada Kedavra!" she whisper-hissed through clenched teeth.
"NO!" screamed Lupin, but it was already too late, and he knew it.
Even the passage of the dim light slowed, and the sounds became as if underwater. Aside from the beating of his own heart, no other muscle moved. That pounding inside beat a rhythm to the words of his wife's execution, the cold curse Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin's judge and jury.
Her pale face, so beautiful in life was now frozen, eyes open, mouth slack, as she was propelled backward onto the balcony's terrace. Her gray eyes held his and in those fractions of seconds his wife was there and then not, the warmth of the ages that had been her love simply had vanished.
Lupin scrambled over to his wife's body, still warm, though he knew it wouldn't be long and she would be cold, so cold. He cried as if his brain was being shredded from the inside. Emotional pain flowed out of his every pore. From his mouth came a cry so raw that even Kingsley's face nearby battling some unknown Death Eater, low in Voldemort's ranks, was wet with tears. From his eyes came a thicker flow of tears than he had cried even for his mother's death all those years ago, and then Sirius.
He had expected one day to bury his father and Dora's parents one day, but never his wife. Someone—probably Kingsley, was talking to him, for all the good that it did poor Remus. His entire world had vanished for him, now there was only enough pain to break him, pain enough to change him beyond recognition. The distraught man cried as if the ferocity of it might bring Dora back, as if by the sheer force of his grief her death would be undone. He was her wife, his one great love, and she could not be gone. Lupin gingerly knelt and pressed his lips to hers, lifting his face to the sky and let out a horrible primal scream that Kingsley heard.
"Been waiting a long time for this, boy. You tried to reject our way of life, taunted us for it. Married a human," came an all too familiar, disgusted voice that sent a tremor of fear and rage down Remus's spine. "You tried to live a normal life, and now look. Your precious mate, your soulmate," he taunted cruelly, sounding like he was thoroughly enjoying himself, "is dead, and it's all your fault, Lupin. You did it. Turn around."
Lupin froze. He recognized that harsh, grating tone. "Greyback," he growled, instinctively feeling his shackles rise and the wolf taking over.
Kingsley tried to hold Remus back, to calm him, tell him the werewolf wasn't worth it, even as his own tears fell thick and fast as he looked at Tonks' lifeless corpse. "She could be sleeping, Lupin," he whispered.
In his hysteria, Lupin was too wild and strong. Kingsley could only watch as he broke from his hold and launched himself at Greyback, dissolved in the suicidal kind of despair that took hold of Lupin's mind and had now rendered him prisoner, never to give him back his sanity.
His wailing carried in the damp air on the terrace surrounding them, freezing Kingsley in place, helpless and at a loss for what to do about it.
In that frozen second between stand off and fighting, Kingsley saw Greyback's yellowed eyes flick from Remus to him. Their faces were unreadable, no fear, no invitational smirk or gesture of any kind.
Lupin was banking on Greyback making the mistake he predicted he would. In that instant as the much larger man propelled himself forward, he flew at Remus, completely ignoring Kingsley Shacklebolt behind him.
He wasn't thinking when he completely chose to ignore his wand clutched in his hand, opting instead to plunge it into the man's eyeball and twist it. Greyback's growl escaped from the back of his throat as he flung Lupin off him, violently grabbing the sleeve of his sweater and throwing him up against the wall, leaning in so his face was only inches apart from his. "This has been a long time coming, kid," Greyback growled, shoving the tip of his own wand into his chest, close to his heart. "I can see it in your eyes. All you want is to go be with your mate," here he spat the word as though it were poison in his mouth. "You're gonna get your wish, kid."
Remus closed his eyes, a muscle in his jaw tensing as he felt his shoulders relax. If he was to die here like this, at least he would get to see Dora again soon. Visions of their three-month-old son flashed through the forefront of his mind, and he hoped that someday, when Teddy was older, that he would understand why his mother and father died to save his life.
To make the world in which he could live just a little bit safer.
He was barely aware of Kingsley shouting something, and someone else had joined the fighting amid all the chaos. Whoever it was, he sounded vaguely familiar, though Lupin had no time to place it as a flash of green light filled his vision and then he knew no more, drifting to sleep.
They say a man who lives fully was not afraid of death. Remus, even know as he stood in this vast train station that was entirely white, was not afraid of death. Where would he go? Would he be a ghost, or would he be allowed to, as Dumbledore said, 'board a train and get on and just go?"
"Go where?" he asked, glancing around for his wife, not seeing her.
"On." Remus frowned at Dumbledore's purposely vague answer.
"Where's my wife, Dumbledore?" he demanded, flinching only slightly as he glanced down at himself. He hardly recognized himself. He looked years younger, at least in his late twenties now, no longer horribly scarred.
At least here in the afterlife, if such a place existed, he could be closer to his wife's age now. That was a good thing at least, he thought hopefully.
When Dumbledore yet again did not answer his question as to where his wife was, he let out a tired sigh and slumped down on a nearby bench.
He wasn't going to get on that train until he found Dora. Death was a painful truth, was what some said. Remus thought of death as a foggy road, and every wizard and witch and Muggle for that matter had to get through that fog through life to finally see the clearing. It was yet another path to walk, and who was to say that it was going to be his last? Certainly not him.
Albus Dumbledore smiled in that wistful way of his. "You both fought bravely," he commended gravely. "Life may be the beginning, but who is to say Death is our last path? What if Death is merely but the middle of the story, and you must read through that part to get to the place beyond?"
A beat. A pause. Lupin sighed. He knew full well he wasn't finished.
"But if we go onto that next path after death, will it be our last path, or are we fated to keep walking?" Dumbledore pondered out loud, tapping his chin thoughtfully. He smiled that ambivalent smile and stood up, wincing at the stiffness in his joints as he began to walk, his white robes billowing behind him. "You wished to see your wife again. She is here…"
"Where?" Lupin swallowed the lump forming in his throat and fought back the beginning of a fresh onset of tears. "Please," he begged. "I…I…"
I need her, is what he wanted to say, but he couldn't seem to find the words. Dumbledore smiled and clapped the much younger man on the back, gingerly steering him towards the pristine white train that waited.
"On." Lupin bit his bottom lip, hesitant. What if she wasn't there? But one look over at Dumbledore's face was more than enough. He nodded mutely, afraid if he opened his mouth to speak, he would either burst into tears or get sick. Maybe even both. So, he didn't. He boarded the train.
Lupin drifted into consciousness the minute he sat down, and then back out. The world was a blur, and random images seemed to float aimlessly around in the pool of his thoughts, as though they were being blown about viciously by a hurricane. A tap on his shoulder momentarily brought him back to the outside world, but after a second, he was lost.
He couldn't keep focus. The whole world around him felt like a blur. Confusion blossomed in his heart, and Remus knew that sooner or later he would need to wake up, to stare his new reality in the face. But for now, he lay down his heavy head, and retreated into the wallowing blackness…
When Remus opened his eyes, he was on a riverbank. Cool water flowed by, eddying around the twigs of a fallen tree branch. Behind him was a willow tree, exactly the same as the one he used to sit by with his father and mother as a young boy. Across the way sat a kingfisher, its blue plumage resplendent in what had to be the light of an eternal summer.
He cast his eyes upward to find the sun, but it wasn't there. Odd.
Then he recalled witnessing Bellatrix Lestrange murdering his wife, and then the werewolf Greyback had pinned him back into a corner.
But no pain when he'd died. He'd hoped it had been the same for her.
Perhaps all this is a dream, Remus thought, dipping his hand into the water and bringing it back out, watching the drips form their ever-increasing circles on impact. So vivid. He held his wetted fingers to the air, and there was a slight breeze, just softly. His eyes caught a dragonfly briefly before he heard Sirius and James' voices hollering at him from up the path. He smiled, feeling the corners of his mouth widen. "Behind you!"
"Heaven," he breathed. "This must be it, then. Dumbledore was right."
Remus turned, not expecting to come face-to-face with Dumbledore.
The old man smiled. "I watched over you every day of your life, I felt your pain, I worked through every good heart and mind around you to alleviate your suffering. I never left either of you, not ever." He paused. "You wished to see your wife. She's here, she's been waiting for you."
"Remus." Her voice came from directly behind him. He turned around. Remus did not know if it was the warmth of the spring air around them, or if she was there, but Tonks stood there. She was beautiful. Her beauty reverted to her early twenties as well, his wife shot him a beautiful white smile. Her form shimmered and waved, and as she walked slowly towards him, she walked like she was painted onto the horizon with a fine brush, the artist constantly touching up and making alterations to her figure. His wife stood in a beautiful flowing white gown that no money could buy or that a human hand could craft such a beautiful garment. Her bright pink pixie cut short and neat, as she usually liked it. Even after all this time, Lupin still admired how her beauty could take his breath away.
Her eyes met hers and she smiled, holding out her left hand for him to take. A quick glance downward showed him she proudly still wore her wedding band, never to take it off once.
Her eyes reminded Remus of the first drink they shared together as an adult, huddled near the warmth of the fire, talking about nothing and everything. They sparkled, reminiscent of the crystal shard Tonks had bought from a shopkeeper once when they went to Hogsmeade.
They reflected all her emotions of love onto Lupin. They sang, a sweet melody that wrapped around Remus and embraced him with its familiar touch and remembrance. They gazed in wonder and curiosity, fresh soil sprouting newly under spring rain. Danced under the shadows on mahogany walls, relaxed, carefree, and bewitching. Those eyes are where Lupin started and where he ended, though he knew time in Heaven was endless, so for him, this was not the end. No, it was just the beginning.
Her eyes were where he would take his last embrace and always return to. Her earthen depths he had never quite fully explored, would always remain a mystery. She smiled. There was something about the way his wife smiled; the way butterflies seemed to escape from the pits of her stomach and the way the sun had somehow toppled down from the sky and made a home right there in Tonks's heart. His wife had the kind of smile that made him happy just to be next to her, that bit more human.
Tonks said nothing as he closed the gap of space between them, reaching up a trembling hand to caress her cheek with the pads of his thumb. "Didn't I tell you? I knew you'd make it home to me, Rem."
He kissed her and the world fell away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled. She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest. His lips brushed against hers. Not innocently, like a tease but hot, fiery, passionate and demanding. "Dora," he whispered slowly, prolonging each letter as if to savor them. "I've missed you. I'm so sorry, about…about our son."
"And I you," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn't keep me waiting. I love you. Our son is going to be fine. He has Harry, my mother, he'll grow up surrounded with a loving family," Tonks responded, caressing his cheek with her thumb. She smiled again, her heart fluttering at his voice as she clasped her hands on either side of his face. Never had her name ever felt so wonderful, she thought, as she leaned in for another kiss.
When she looked at Remus, it was as if every ounce of breath was taken from his lungs, floating into the air like midnight smoke. Every time she kissed him, it felt like the world stopped, leaving just the two of them to wander the endless limits of Heaven together, as it should be. Every time she held his face between her hands, it felt like she was untying all his knots. Holding him for eternity in the arms he'd grown so accustomed to. This is what falling in love was like, a story you never wanted to end. For so long Tonks had longed for it, and now he can't bear to lose it - lose this thing that made him complete. Even now, their bodies restored to eternal youth in this place of endless happiness in Heaven, he kept falling in love with Tonks, and each time was harder than the last. Every time the feeling got deeper, more complete, more bewitching. There wasn't a thing he wouldn't do to keep Tonks safe. He didn't want his wife to ever think that she had to ask for his affection, because she did not, and she never had.
The more love he gave his wife, the more he had bursting inside of him. In his wife's embrace the world stopped still on its axis.
There was no time, no wind, no rain. Tonks's mind was at peace. How could it be that he hadn't seen Tonks's love for what it was? Pure. Unselfish. Undemanding. Free. He felt his body press in, soft and warm.
This was the love he had waited for all his life, prayed for. He inwardly thanked God and hugged Tonks all the tighter. A love like this was to be cherished for life. Finally, he was home.
With Tonks, where he belonged.
Two months since the battle's end, and Wes found himself in a place where he never wanted to go again. Yet somehow, his feet knew the way.
He went inside the complex, Azkaban prison, slow and stealthily. The air inside was different, cold, and for a moment, the young werewolf was unable to put his finger on why. Then it occurred to him. The smell of sweat was gone, there was no sound of people, nothing but the eerie silence. But that wasn't the worst of it. This place was just walls, cells. Here, he could feel the icy grip of death.
"You're here," he growled, coming to a halt outside the prisoner's cell. The time in Azkaban had not been kind to Greyback. He'd lost weight since his imprisonment, and his prison robes hung off his form. "You…"
"So," drawled Greyback, sounding bored. "You came after all. To see me, the man who killed your pathetic little friends and pretty little wife."
"Yes." Wes froze, his hands curled into a tight fist in an interior pocket of his jacket, around his wand. His fingers were twitching as he fought to restrain the urge. "Tell me why," he demanded urgently. "Why you did…"
The werewolf was bound differently from the rest, for he had on his legs a chain so long that it wound all the way around his bulky form.
His wrists bound by manacles and his wand snapped in two, there was no way Greyback was going to leave Azkaban Prison alive in one piece.
Greyback chuckled lowly, crouching in the shadows of his prison cell.
"I am a person," he said, feeling his voice go dangerously quiet. "Or I was one once, a person, a being with scars and bruises all over my body, red trickly blood running down my sides. The very picture of misery the minute I was bitten," he growled, baring his canines, and revealed his yellowing, rotten gums to Wes, whose face blanched, but he did not avert his gaze. He'd come all this way now; he couldn't very well lose his nerve.
Greyback continued. "My kind said time could heal things. But I never healed, or even became better. I'm nothing more than a visionary with a dream," he growled, and he lifted his chin to meet Wes's gaze. "I don't care what you think of me as long as you obey me, boy. I know I have odd methods, but they work. I know what life should be like and I understand that many things and creatures are inferior to me. In my position it is simply mercy. I know if I don't save them with the wonders of death. they will die in the horror of life. Some people are born good and always fight off the bad. Some people are born bad and become good through great effort. Others are born in light and fall to darkness. And others are born in darkness and cannot see the light. Try as you might to believe otherwise, everyone fits into one of those categories. Which one are you? Are you good or bad? Light or dark? An angel or a demon? I know what I am. When I came of age, I realized the life ahead of me was one of anger, pain and hatred. Of darkness. Did I want that? Yeah. I did. I grew up surrounded by fire and ash and poison and death. It was the only thing I knew, so of course I wanted it. I was never taught what love was. What kindness was. In fact, in my entire childhood I think I saw just one type of smile - a smile full of malice and cruel intent, from both my parents."
Wes felt his body start to tremble uncontrollably. He had not come here to listen to Fenrir Greyback's sob story. "You killed my wife. Norah."
Greyback frowned. "Who?" he asked, feigning innocence, and that was all it took. White knuckled from clenching his fist too hard, and gritted teeth from his effort to remain silent, Wes's tense form exuded an animosity that was like acid—burning, slicing, and utterly potent.
His face was white with suppressed rage, and he mentally snapped.
Legend says that for someone who was a werewolf, like Wes was, like Remus had been, that their hearts died in their chest cavities long ago, and that was how they became killers and perhaps why. The witches of the northern isle, and those in Wales said the emptiness was their madness.
That someone like Wes took a life over and over again, as if he thought that would allow him to possess a heart and soul again following the loss of his wife, yet it was never so. To be healed, they said, someone pure had to love each of them, to reform their heart as if it was the finest of clay, then set it to beating with pure nature's essence. So, until Wes could find such a being to forgive all that he had done wrong in life, to break the universal scales and set his soul free to begin anew, he'd kill.
"But only one," he swore through gritted teeth. Wes lifted his wand, pointing it at the prison's luck, muttering the Unlocking Charm under his breath, stowing his wand back in his jacket. There would be no magic here today. He could tell just by the other wolf's scent that he was weakened.
"Good," he whisper-hissed through gritted teeth, the cold steel of his blade came swiftly out of his jeans pocket and was buried in Greyback's stomach right to the hilt. Wes look at his stupid, surprised eyes and gave it a twist for good measure. He shoved Greyback as he rolled to one side.
The older werewolf groaned and gurgled as he bled out, his skin graying as the light and life force slowly left his eyes. "Now, then," growled Wes, waving his wand and conjuring a chair, pulling it up to sit next to him. "I suppose, I could be cruel and torture you before you I kill you," Wes stated calmly, intertwining his fingers and leaning forward in his chair. "Considering what you did to my wife, to my friends, there's no question in my mind that it would be appropriate. Master," here he thought of that other wolf, Lupin, and his wife, Tonks, the two he considered friends.
They'd shown him that it was possible for him and his Norah to have a future. At least, until Greyback had so cruelly taken his wife from him.
"However," Wes sighed, almost sounding bored. "Unfortunately, I'm not as vulgar as you. So, I think I'll just sit here and watch until you've taken your last miserable breath. Judging by your wounds I'd say you have about five minutes at best. I dedicate these last few minutes of your miserable, wretched life to Norah Jameson and Remus and Nymphadora Lupins' souls. May they all rest in peace. Go to hell, you piece of shit."
Greyback struggled to say something, but the blood coating the back of his throat like a thick slime made it difficult for the werewolf to breathe.
True to his word, Wes's face was the last thing he saw before he died.
Hell was nothing like Greyback had imagined, but then he'd never felt such a pain in all his life, so, how could he? Pain had been something for his victims and how he'd loved seeing it radiated from their eyes and their stretched wide mouths screaming into the empty fields. He had never believed in God, in heaven or hell, but idly he had wondered why this omnipotent being didn't stop him. Perhaps this was a God of war, of pain and suffering, perhaps he was to be honored in the next life.
He had liked that thought. On his death he was not given a choice of punishment, instead God bestowed upon him perfect clarity- the ability to understand as a God does the suffering inflicted on his victims, the pain of their loved ones and the pain of God Himself. He understood in that brilliant flash that God can only act through the willing heart and mind. Fenrir fell, begging for ignorance, amnesia or a chance to right his wrongs but God was gone, underfoot was a grassy field, screams rent the air...
Satisfied that the man who had killed his wife was dead, Wes rose from his chair, waving his wand so that the chair disappeared. He spat at the man's feet on his way out, not looking back. His work here was finished.
West was a murderer now. He wanted nothing more than to rest.
